Thursday, June 5, 2014Ohio lawmakers are considering a ban on state coverage of IUDsThe sponsor acknowledges it would also eliminate some birth control pills from state coverageby WKSU's STATEHOUSE CORRESPONDENT JO INGLES

ReporterJo Ingles

John Becker acknowledges his bill would ban state coverage of IUDs and some birth control pills.

Ohio lawmakers are considering a bill that would eliminate coverage for many birth control pills and intrauterin devices from the health plans of state employees. Ohio Public Radio’s Jo ingles reports the sponsor of that bill claims some of these birth control options cause abortions.

Republican State Rep. John Becker wants to eliminate all coverage for abortion in state health care plans, even in cases of rape and incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. The only exception would be an ectopic pregnancy, when the egg is implanted in the fallopian tubes.

But the bill does something else. Becker wants to eliminate insurance coverage for some popular forms of birth control, including an intrauterin device.

“An IUD would be prevented because those take a human life without question. That’s what those are designed to do.”

Becker says the bill also would eliminate other forms of birth control, including certain birth control pills that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman’s uterus.

“The bottom line is you have an embryo that is created. And it does (keep) that human life from being implanted in the uterus and it dies.”

Where’s the science?Democratic State Rep. John Carney takes issue with Becker’s thinking.

“You’ve got a representative who just lacks fundamental understanding of medical science who is pushing forward a piece of legislation that would impact many, many people here in the state of Ohio: To include all state employees, to include my family, to say that you shouldn’t be able to use these sorts of birth control devices because they cause abortions, which is just factually incorrect.”

Carney says there’s no need for lawmakers to give this bill serious consideration.

“It demonstrates how out of touch a number of these individual s are.”

If Ohio bans the insurance coverage of these birth control methods, it would violate a rule in the Affordable Care Act that requires most insurance plans to cover the full range of contraceptives at no out of pocket cost to a woman. Becker says he’s in the process of getting more information on that.

Listener Comments:

There may be stupider voters than those in Cleremont County, the steaming heap of idiots who sent John Becker to the Statehouse. But I've no idea who those voting morons would be.

Becker is the same crackpot who introduced bills to allow state employees to carry guns on the job in most state buildings and to prohibit law enforcement agencies from destroying firearms confiscated by the police.

A decade before his election to the legislature, Becker wrote a letter to the editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer pointing out that as Massachusetts had recently allowed same-sex marriage, the federal government to amend the Constitution to prohibit such unions, or failing that expel Massachusetts from the Union.

The previous year, in another such letter, he proposed allowing Alaska to leave the Union so that it would be free to produce more oil.Posted by: Mark Ira Kaufman (Silver Lake OH) on June 6, 2014 8:06AM